fwriction

I have a new online literary journal obsession, and it’s the Used Furniture Review! The simple, direct interface, strong writing, and fun interviews make this a journal I’m sure we’ll be hearing good things from for a long time.

Today’s stories of the day are three fiction pieces that rocked my waffle. Enjoy some Used Furniture Review:

“Beautiful Babette, the Wandering Nymphette,” by Roxane Gay

“She met a man, Fréderic, at the airport as they waited for their baggage. He offered to escort her to her hotel while they shared a cigarette at the taxi stand. She knew what he was after. She didn’t mind. Fréderic not only escorted Babette to her hotel, he accompanied her to her room and then he accompanied her to a mediocre orgasm but Babette was in Paris so she was feeling generous and she didn’t mind that either.”

“Fictioneer,” by Paul Lisicky

“And the Fictioneer lay back on his raft, dreaming as if he’d found himself on a sea in which there was no one to miss, and no one to miss him back.”

“Corrective,” by Julie Innis

“It’s a boyfriend who first points it out. Her nipples have grown wall-eyed, staring off in opposite directions. Distracting, he says, looking away.

I hadn’t noticed, she says, but after that it is all she notices. She keeps a shirt on and the lights out, but still, it bothers her, this problem. She is only twenty-five. What if this migration continues? By forty, she’ll be flat-chested and breast-backed.

Nip-tuck, the boyfriend advises, sewing at the air between them.”